BONY

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Prucha Re-Signs

The Rangers have re-signed forward Petr Prucha to a two-year deal worth $1.6 million per.

That leaves Henrik Lundqvist, Brendan Shanahan, Sean Avery and Marcel Hossa left to re-up and the Rangers with $10-11 million worth of cap space to do it.

Of course, there are a couple of wrinkles.

During the offseason, teams can go 10 pecent above the team cap (from $50.3 million to $55.33 million) as long as they get back under the $50.3 million figure by the last day of training camp. But Darius Kasparaitis' $3 million counts in that accounting until he's sent back to the minors at camp.

Players over 35 can sign one-year deals with lower base salaries and easily-attainable bonuses that allow teams to defer cap compliance. By the end of the season, all the bonuses paid will count and any team over the cap will have that much less cap room the next season. In the meantime, though, players can be sent to the minors and traded in order to clear room. Which means that Brendan Shanahan can sign a lower-base, heavy-on-bonuses deal that can get him back to around $4 million for next season without the Rangers having to count all of it until year's end.

As for the unsigned four, Shanahan is on the verge. Lundqvist is hammering out a new deal. Avery is likely to take the Rangers to salary arbitration. Hossa is unlikely to get much more than his qualifying offer.